Birds, of every hue, made this Adal forest their home, and displayed all that enjoyment of life, which appears to be the one general feeling that animates these happy denizens of air. Their shrill piping songs, their joyous freedom, and quick sportive movements, as chasing each other, or challenging to the flight, they dart from tree to tree, excite corresponding feelings of buoyancy and happiness in the delighted traveller, glad to have escaped from the stony deserts, or the burning plains of the arid country he has previously passed through.
In two hours we arrived at a more open country, its surface gently undulating, with a gradual slope towards the west. Here, it was not so densely wooded; the trees appeared younger, and the idea occurred to me, that a flood might have rushed over and devastated this district, some few years before, and this natural plantation had sprung up subsequent to that event. I could not obtain any information corroborative of this as a fact, but the uniform height of the trees, their young appearance, and the contiguity to an overflowing river, the Hawash, afforded me some reasons for supposing this part of the country to have been so acted upon.
A curious kind of medicine, I observed carefully picked up by my Dankalli companions. This was the hard clay-like fæces of the manus, or pangolin, said to have cathartic effects. This mailed ant-eater excavates, with its strong fore claws, a passage through the thick mud walls of the ant-hills, and the numerous army of soldier and of labouring ants, that are hereupon summoned to the rescue, fall an easy prey to the slimy-tongued invader. The pangolin materially assists the porcupine in obtaining his food, for after the destruction of the little animals by the former, he takes advantage of the excavated passage, and possesses himself of the hoards of grain and other seeds, collected by these industrious insects. This, at least, appears to me the most reasonable mode of accounting for the presence of the porcupine, so frequently found in the neighbourhood of a burrowed, and, consequently, a ruined ant-hill.
During our march, Adam Burrah gave information to Ohmed Medina, that one of my escort, Esau Ibrahim, had threatened to take my life, in revenge for Ohmed Mahomed having denied some tobacco he wanted. I never liked this Esau; he always showed such unnecessary obsequiousness, that I had long suspected, he intended something more than he wished me to have any idea of. I was, therefore, not surprised when Ohmed Medina told me to take care of him; but I had nearly managed it very badly by suggesting, in reply, that he should be got rid of somehow or another. It was fortunate, both for himself and me, that I added almost immediately, I had thought of a plan, which was to send him with a letter to Shoa to announce my arrival, to do which I had been requested the two previous days by Ohmed Mahomed, and I now thought that two dollars could not be better expended, than by sending Esau out of the way on that errand. The same money would have induced Adam Burrah to have cut the throat of this rascal, and if I had only nodded my head, when this mode of relieving my care was proposed, it would have been done the same night. I preferred disappointing Adam Burrah, to whom, however, I was obliged to promise an additional present on our arrival in Shoa, to prevent such a sanguinary proof of his regard being done gratis.
Several times our road was crossed by swamps of small extent, that lay on each side of narrow and shallow ditches. It was most unpleasant walking for me, as my boots were quite worn out, and had large, gaping splits in the upper leather, which admitted the mud very freely. I would not ride, because my mule could scarcely drag herself through the soft, sticky clay. The broad foot of the camel was better suited for such situations, although these animals could not get on very well, and were continually slipping. On such occasions, one of their long legs, or sometimes both, slide outside with such a painfully prolonged sweep, that it is a most astonishing thing that dislocation does not sometimes take place.
I trudged along, in a very cross humour, my bare-legged companions laughing all the while, and sometimes lending me a hand, when I got stuck altogether in the mud. I, at length, began to be amused myself, as I thought of the will-o’-the-wisp that was leading me through such scenes; and from a personal review of myself, I took on getting over the last of these difficult portions of the road, I felt quite sure my own mother would have found it difficult to recognise her son in the bog-trotting, moss-trooping Bedouin that was now trying by a series of bending and extending movements of the feet, to squeeze out of the splits in the leather, as much as possible of the mud contained in his boots.
Having got quite clear of the marshy district, we entered upon a fine grassy plain, where we perceived two buffaloes, but at too great a distance for us to think of pursuing them. I learnt, on this occasion, that of the hide of these animals, the Dankalli manufacture their shields. These are well made, and formed of a circular slab of the still moist skin, about twenty inches in diameter, moulded into the required concave form, by being dried upon a corresponding convexity of heaped-up, hard clay. The rim is, at the same time, curled outwards and upwards by being well pecked as with a mattock, all around by a wooden instrument, exactly identical with the so-called wooden hoe, contained in the Egyptian room in the British Museum, and corresponding in form with the handle of the Dankalli axe I have before described. The shield is held in one hand by a strong and hard ring of twisted hide that, like a bar of metal, crosses over the centre, its size being such as to admit of the shield being slung sometimes upon the arm, like a basket. The centre of the front is ornamented by a small boss, from which depends a long tuft of horsehair, sometimes white, tinged with henna, sometimes black. This tuft is the characteristic symbol of a brave, as it is only assumed after the bearer has slain a man. On the inside of the shield, corresponding to the raised boss, is a depression, about one inch deep, and an inch and a-half in diameter, where generally is placed any little portable valuable, that can be stowed away in it. Gum myrrh, not unfrequently, occupies this place, and sometimes “eltit,” or assafœtida, or some other valued medicine. Assafœtida is not indigenous to Adal; the Dankalli obtain it in small quantities from Arabia.
One trait in the character of these people, is the great attention they pay to the condition of their arms. Brightening or sharpening them is their favourite amusement, and no fiercer scowls are excited than by the accidental disturbance of the carefully-deposited shield or spear. No traveller in Adal can help observing this; and in the description of a war-dance of these people, in a recent work upon Ethiopia, its imaginary character is betrayed by the alleged beating of the shields; which, however characteristic it may be of the peaceable Abyssinian, when he endeavours to represent the turmoil of strife, is quite out of place when speaking of Dankalli customs and manners.
We halted in a very open spot, amidst high grass, no trees being in sight, except toward the north and west, where a low mimosa forest extended as far as the bases of the hills of Hyhilloo and Abhidah. In the south-west the table mountain of Afrabah, cut off as it seemed from the ridge of Goror and of Oburah, on which is situated the celebrated city of Hurrah, at the distance of about sixty miles. Our halting-place was called Mullu, and the whole plain, north and south, bore the same general designation.
After getting into my hut, my first business was to send for Ohmed Mahomed, to consult respecting the letter that was to be forwarded to Shoa. Esau Ibrahim was sent for, and willingly undertook, for two dollars, to be the bearer. The letter was written and ready for him long before evening, but as the tribes now between us and the Hawash were hostile to Kafilahs or their messengers proceeding through their country, he was obliged to defer his departure until night. As he asserted that he should be able to deliver the letter in three days, I began to entertain some hopes of getting through the country; and before he started, by the interpreting assistance of my servant Allee, I charged him with an abundance of verbal messages to the officers of the British Mission in Ankobar, to induce them to come and meet me, which, in my ignorance of Shoan policy, I thought they might do, even so far as the banks of the Hawash. A most affectionate and sincere leave-taking passed between Esau Ibrahim and myself, and very soon after he had taken his departure, I went to sleep in peace.